"The Passion" too violent? The "Shroud of Turin" shows it happened!

The Diocese of Charleston ^ | March 21, 2002 | Dr. William E. Rabil

[Vets_Husband_and_Wife]

Shroud of Turin history presented in Upstate
Retired surgeon relays his nearly 40 years of research on the Shroud of Turin

By SHEILA OJENDYK

GREENVILLE — Dr. William E. Rabil has no doubt that the Shroud of Turin is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. Rabil, a retired general surgeon from Winston-Salem, N.C., began studying the shroud in the late 1950s and has been lecturing about it for nearly 40 years. He made two slide presentations to parishioners at St. Mary Church on March 6.

Rabil began with a brief history of the shroud. After the crucifixion, the shroud was originally hidden in Jerusalem and was thought to have been moved to Edessa (Urfa, Turkey) after Jerusalem fell to the Romans in A.D. 70. In 944, the Byzantine Imperial Army invaded Edessa to recover the shroud and brought it to Constantinople (now Istanbul). Raiders from the Fourth Crusade invaded Istanbul in 1294 and took the shroud to Europe. It is believed to have been hidden by the Knights Templar until Geoffrey DeCharney exhibited it in Liren, France, in 1353. From that point forward, its history is fully documented. The shroud was moved to Turin, Italy, in 1578 and has remained there ever since. It is kept in a silver reliquary behind bullet-proof glass inside the Chapel of the Shroud.

The shroud was first photographed in 1898 by Italian photographer Secondo Pia. His first shot was a misfire, but his second shot caused him to fall to his knees. On the negative was the "positive image of Jesus Christ." The markings on the shroud are negative images, and it took the photographic reversal of light and dark to reveal the positive image of a man's body.

While the evidence cannot prove conclusively that the image on the shroud is Jesus, it is definitely the image of man between 5 feet 11 inches and 6 feet tall who weighed approximately 175 pounds. Forensic medical investigation confirms that the man died from crucifixion.

The body in the shroud was unclothed. All four books of the Gospel tell of Roman soldiers casting lots for Jesus' garments.

The shroud was not wrapped around the body, as one might expect. The body was placed on top of the shroud with the feet at one end. The other end of the shroud was brought over the head and spread on top of the body, ending at the feet.

Jesus' torture and crucifixion were much bloodier than most paintings have ever depicted. The back of the body in the shroud shows multiple scourge marks from the nape of the neck to the feet. The Romans used a flagrum for scourging. A flagrum was a whip with bone or metal-tipped leather thongs that was specifically designed to tear flesh. One-hundred twenty scourge marks were counted on the body.

Blood had not been washed from the body in the shroud. The Sabbath was fast approaching when Jesus was taken down from the cross, and he had to be buried before sundown. The doctor emphasized that Jesus' body would have gone into rigor mortis almost immediately after death because of the trauma of crucifixion, which would have made washing very difficult. Jewish burial practices also precluded washing blood that was flowing at the time of death.

The face shows bruising on the nose; Jesus was struck on the nose by a high priest. The body had a mustache and beard, and there is evidence that facial hair had been plucked.

There were no broken bones, but some bones were displaced. There is evidence of spike wounds to both wrists and the feet. Forensic investigators have proved that the spikes were not pounded into Jesus' palms because the weight of an adult would have torn completely through all tissues, and he would have fallen off the cross. The spikes were pounded into his wrists, and the bones separated. One foot was nailed over the other.

According to Dr. John Heller in his book, Report on the Shroud of Turin (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1983), "There is a swelling of both shoulders, with abrasions indicating something heavy and rough had been carried across the man's shoulders within hours of death."

There is no pigment on the linen cloth of the shroud. If paint had been used, the wound pattern would have become obliterated. The blood stains on the back of the skull demonstrate the unique cohesive properties of blood. No other substance behaves the same way. Scientific testing has confirmed that the stains are blood and body fluids.

The forensic examination shows that the crown of thorns was actually a cap over the entire scalp. A painting done from the shroud image shows a thorn above Jesus' right eye.

Some photos of the shroud show the image of coins placed over both eyes, a Jewish burial custom. The image exactly matches that of a coin minted during the reign of Pontius Pilate between A.D. 29 and 33.

Botanical experts have examined fragments of the shroud and found spores and seeds from 27 plants that are indigenous to Jerusalem. Geological analysis of particles showed limestone indigenous to caves surrounding Jerusalem and suggested that the shroud was placed in a damp tomb or cave.

Jesus died after about three hours on the cross, which was considered fast for a man of his age and physical condition. Medical experts theorize that he was severely weakened by the brutal scourging. Death by crucifixion is very painful. The muscles of the arms, chest, and legs quickly go into spasm, and the victim dies of asphyxiation.

The shroud has been studied and tested carefully by surgeons, forensic scientists, nuclear scientists, radiologists, Biblical scholars, botanists, and historians. Experts have disagreed with each other and challenged each other's theories and tests. Nobody will ever prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Shroud of Turin was the burial cloth of Jesus Christ — but nobody can prove it wasn't either.

[Swordmaker]

The Sudaman (sp?) face cover is pretty interesting (never heard about it before), and along those lines, has any testing been done on the "Veronica" (vera icon) cloth that was shown in the film, and I believe is still out there today somewhere? (I also didn't realize that a "hat" of thorns was around too).

The Sudarium exists but the Veronica is problematic.

THE VERONICA

THE MANDYLION

For those who don't know, the Veronica is the cloth that was supposedly used by Jesus to wipe the sweat from his face on the way to the cross. There are three St. Veronicas.

The most well-known is the woman who wiped Our Lord's face when he fell on the road to Calvary.  This is depicted in Station VI in the Stations of the Cross.  Tradition tells us an image of Christ was left on the cloth, and our logo is an artist's rendition of this.  Interestingly, scholars have noted that Veronica's name may have come from this story itself rather then being a name of an historical figure; 'vera' means 'true' and 'icon' means 'image.' 

Some scholars think that the Shroud, the Veronica, and the Mandylion are one and the same cloth. Note the strange crosslike florets behind the imagein the picture above of the Veronica. Note also the decorations on the cloth of the picture of the Mandylion. It is posulated that the Shroud was once folded in four (tetra diplong - an early description of the Image of Edessa - the modern city of Urfa in Turkey) with only the face visible and mounted in a lattice work or frame with ornate carving. Every early image of the Veronica includes some type of ornament that may be a representation of that framework. Studies of the creases in the Shroud show that it spent some time folded in just such a manner.

Various traditions surround the Image of Edessa... one of which has Veronica bringing her miraculous image there, others have Jesus SEND his image to the king of Edessa, and yet others have an apostle bring it. The image stayed in Edessa for centuries... and was lost until the sixth century when it was discovered, sealed in the city wall. It was at this time that many icons of the Veronica appeared in Christendom.

Later descriptions of the Edessa cloth sound like the Shroud was discovered when the lattice work was opened... In particular The Sermon of Gregory Referendarius which was delivered when the Image of Edessa arrived in Constantinople in 944 AD: ". . .And so, what exactly is it? By the simple touching to the face of Christ, an image of his form was made, so that people would not think in a dangerous or perilous way that it never actually existed and has been invented. . ."

And: ". . . And miraculously, just as he made everything from nothing in his divine strength, he imprinted the reflection of his form on the linen. . ." (This passage may indicate the awareness of reversal of the image on the cloth!)

The original Latin this sermon was given in makes a distinction between "face" and "form" with the latter meaning "body."

Both the Mandylion and the Veronica supposedly still exist... but to modern eyes they appear to be paintings, early icons that may have come, over the years, to be mistaken for the "real thing," since the Shroud, which probably gave rise to both traditions exists in its own right and cannot be displayed as either. The Vatican has one of the several TRUE Mandylions in a reliquary:

The Vatican Mandylion

To our eyes it is obviously a painting. Later pictures of the TRUE Veronica show what to our eyes is a painting of a painting.

[Swordmaker]

So basically you enjoy cutting and pasting nonsense until people get bored with you and stop responding, and then you declare victory. Okay,then!

I see you are still trying to be more insulting. No banana.

I presented the research and facts as currently known. The only thing I cut and past are direct quotations; the commentary I wrote.

Which parts are "nonsense," Happy?

I have impeached your citations and your evidence.

Don't just toss ad hominem bombs: Refute it, if you disagree..

[bellas_sister]

Well said....

[Aquinasfan]

What is the Eucharistic miracle of Lanciano??

Ancient Anxanum, the city of the Frentanese, has contained for over twelve centuries the first and greatest Eucharistic Miracle of the Catholic Church. This wondrous Event took place in the 8th century A.D. in the little Church of St. Legontian, as a divine response to a Basilian monk's doubt about Jesus' Real Presence in the Eucharist.

During Holy Mass, after the two-fold consecration, the host was changed into live Flesh and the wine was changed into live Blood, which coagulated into five globules, irregular and differing in shape and size.

Scientific analysis shows that:

1)The Flesh is real Flesh. The Blood is real Blood.

2)The Flesh and the Blood belong to the human species.

3)The Flesh consists of the muscular tissue of the heart.

4)In the Flesh we see present in section: the myocardium, the endocardium, the vagus nerve and also the left ventricle of the heart for the large thickness of the myocardium.

5)The Flesh is a "HEART" complete in its essential structure.

6)The Flesh and the Blood have the same blood-type: AB (Blood-type identical to that which Prof. Baima Bollone uncovered in the Holy Shroud of Turin).

7)In the Blood there were found proteins in the same normal proportions (percentage-wise) as are found in the sero-proteic make-up of the fresh normal blood.

8)In the Blood there were also found these minerals: chlorides, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, sodium and calcium.

The preservation of the Flesh and of the Blood, which were left in their natural state for twelve centuries and exposed to the action of atmospheric and biological agents, remains an extraordinary phenomenon.

There is type AB blood (occurs in 2% of the population) on The Shroud of Turin, the Sudarium of Oviedo, and the Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano.

Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano

Sudarium of Oviedo

Sudarium Shows Shroud of Turin to be Much Older Than Carbon-14 Dating

[Aquinasfan]

In 1975 some scientists ran the image from the Shroud of Turin through a NASA terrain analyzer .

Here is the image from the VP-8 image analyzer.

Now compare the original image with the negative image and the center image created using the "emboss" filter in Photoshop.

Here are the images.

There is no pigment on the Shroud. The image was created by scorching. The 3D data has one plausible explanation. A burst of radiation emanating from the body scorched the cloth in proportion to its distance from the body.

[Aquinasfan]

Here is information regarding the 3D information encoded in the Shroud of Turin. Click here to see images.

VP-8 Image Analyzer and the Shroud of Turin

Designed in the 1960's for creating relief maps from moon photographs and for other topographical imaging purposes, the VP-8 Image Analyzer is an analog device that converts image density (lights and darks) into vertical relief (shadows and highlights). When applied to photographs made specifically for this type of analysis, the result is an accurate, topographic image showing the correct, natural relief characteristics of the subject. These results are often referred to as "three-dimensional."

In 1976, a group of scientists working on various projects at Los Alamos National Laboratories put a 1931 Enrie photograph of the Shroud of Turin into the VP-8 and discovered that these same three-dimensional properties exist in the Shroud image. This particularly intrigued two of the researchers present at the test, Dr. Eric Jumper and Dr. John Jackson. Stimulated by their startling discovery, they decided to form a research team to investigate what might have formed the image on the cloth and within a few months, the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) was born. Two years later, that same team would perform the first ever, in-depth scientific examination of the Shroud of Turin.

When input to a VP-8, a normal photograph does not result in a properly formed dimensional image but in a rather distorted jumble of light and dark "shapes." That is because the lights and darks of a normal photograph result solely from the amount of light reflected by the subject onto the film. The image densities do not depend on the distance the subject was from the film. Yet the image on the Shroud of Turin yields a very accurate dimensional relief of a human form. One must conclude from this that the image density on the cloth is directly proportionate to the distance it was from the body it covered. In essence, the closer the cloth was to the body (tip of nose, cheekbone, etc.), the darker the image, and the further away (eye sockets, neck, etc.), the fainter the image. This spatial data encoded into the image actually eliminates photography and painting as the possible mechanism for its creation and allows us to conclude that the image was formed while the cloth was draped over an actual human body. So the VP-8 Image Analyzer not only revealed a previously unknown and very important characteristic of the Shroud image, but historically it also provided the actual motivation to form the team that would ultimately go and investigate it. Interestingly, only sixty VP-8 Image Analyzers were ever constructed and only two remain functional today.

On May 1, 1997, I was fortunate to spend some time in North Carolina with my friend Kevin Moran, retired Senior Technology Specialist from Eastman Kodak's Estek Products Division and a Shroud researcher since 1978. Kevin owns one of the two functioning original VP-8 units and was kind enough to welcome me into his home and spend the next 14 straight hours working with me to videotape "new" VP-8 images. Actually, the real thanks should go to his dear wife Anne, who put up with the two of us working until 4:00am!

To maximize the quality of the somewhat dated and temperamental imaging system, I replaced the existing camera and lens with a new high resolution CCD camera and lens and used first generation black & white prints made directly from my original 4x5" negatives as source images. I recorded the results off the VP-8's green screen monitor using a Sony BetaCam SP system. The image at the top of this page is a frame taken from the videotape we made during that "all-nighter".

The Animated Gif file below shows only a brief sample of the VP-8 "Gain" control being applied to the Shroud facial area. It may take a minute or so after the page has finished loading for the animation to begin. If you have any difficulty getting the animation to start, try going to a different page of the website and then returning to the "VP-8" page using your browser's "back" button. If you still have difficulty, try reloading the page. Once you have it stored in the cache on your hard disk, the next time you load the page the animation will run immediately.

[netmilsmom]

I was using a metaphor to say that God himself could come down and the mainstream media would not report it.

[windchime]

Bump!

[madison10]

Snapshot negatives? No. The negatives have nothing to do with who we are "in Christ."

Did you read the article, especially the portion about how it was discovered? The image was not always apparent, it did not come into view until a gentleman took a photo of it & looked at the NEGATIVE.

So those in medieval times most likely did not even know the image was there. They just believed it to be the burial cloth of Christ.

Your answers are still beyond bizarre. ;)

[Agamemnon]

As you should know, carbon dating is not of any use for living tissue, nor has it been claimed to be of such use.

And the reason we know this is because someone(s) callng themselves scientists tried to do it. Your point is...? You state the obvious, even as I do. Fact is it's not of much use, if any, for dead tissue either.

The 32-page "doc dump" in your link speaks plenty about rates of decay. No one disputes rates of decay. Using one isotope's known rate of decay to judge the credibility of the rate of decay of another isotope is also not in question either (provided of course that the chosen "known" rate of decay is credible itself.)

One can observe parent and daughter radio-elements as they exist today. You can also know half-lives and dress up articles with impressive rate-of-decay equations. I have done so before myself. One cannot credibly say how much of either of those elements was associated with the test article at T=0, however.

As an illustration, I am driving a Buick at 60 MPH, I have 5 gallons left in my gas tank. Question: when did I start the car?

Incredibly, some who call themselves scientists (yes, even some of those in your "doc dump," I suspect too) think they can tell you, because they know another guy driving a Ford at 45 MPH with 10 gallons of gas in his tank.

What critical facts are missing? I don't know the capacity of my gas tank, or his gas tank either. Furthermore, even if I know the capacity of the tank, I still don't know how much gas I had to start with.

Attempting to speculate anything else about the facts as they were given in the illustration, or about dead things as they are found to reside in nature today is meaningless. One can dress up bad science with impressive looking mathematical equations but lacking the critical key pieces of information, impressive looking equations are just that. They become bad math, if used to support bad science and it becomes bad science when conclusions are drawn absent the essential, credible facts.

As a scientist one would expect that such an attempt would be made on live tissue so the conjecture could be falsified, no? I was radio-labelling proteins in my thesis work and early in my career (C-14, and P-32, mostly). I interpret radio-labelled data derived in metabolic fate studies even today. I can tell you the initial known quantity of how much dose is going in and how much shows up where and in what tissues. I can because I have a credible baseline.

What I said about C-14's worthlessness as an analytical tool for the purposes of determining the age of a long-since dead organism still stands, prinicpally for the reasons I gave. What is also true is whatever results are obtained are too easily tainted by pre-conceived notions about what the results should be in the minds of some, absent a fundamental ability to establish any sort of credible baseline.

The best one has in the end is untethered data whose only meaning is skewed by the typically less-than-objective investigator.

[shield]

I believe the Shroud is what it is, "The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ".

Study your bible, you'll find that Jesus never had a burial cloth. HE had linen clothing and a napkin placed over HIS face. No Burial Cloth. John 20:7

[madison10]

Study your Bible, you'll find that Jesus never had a burial cloth. HE had linen clothing and a napkin placed over HIS face. No Burial Cloth. John 20:7 Now WHY wouldn't/couldn't "linen clothing" be a "burial cloth," pray tell?

[happydogdesign]

That's just precious-people who want to sell you books and junk have convinced you that the Catholic Church is lying about definitive proof of their own deity's resurrection.

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: The Shroud of Turin

I know some millionaires from Nigeria who are looking for someone like you.

[Doctor Don]

The Shroud is not authentic. Jesus was buried in a burial wrap that consisted of strips of fabric that totally wrapped His body in a cocoon fashion with a cloth covering His face. When He was risen this was the striking thing the disciples saw that convinced them of a supernatural event.......an empty cocoon!

[anonymous_user]

Well, I'll give you the last word, even if it doesn't make any sense.

[dangus]

The shroud was subjected to vast amounts of heat and smoke in the 15th century. This would have the effect of renewing the dating of the Carbon in the shroud.

[dangus]

Be fascinating to see the DNA type... I read where virgin conceptions do happen about once every billion births. The offispring sexual genotype is X0, not XY or XX. (meaning only one chromosome set!) The offspring would appear like a normal male in every way, except two: 1. He'd be impotent. 2. He'd also likely exhibit an unusual number of recessive genetic traits. It's anti-miraculous scientificism I'd like to see debunked.

[anonymous_user]

You are perhaps a bit too new to FR to understand what is meant when one refers to a poster on FR as wearing a tin-foil hat.

Could be, although both the shroud and tin-foil hats serve to:

1. Tin foil hats and the shroud set people apart from the "Unbelievers" (The ACLU, David Limbaugh's "Persecutionists", The Passion Movie haters, anyone applying a little discernment to their artifact-worship.)

2. To serve as a show to others as to how serious they are to others. e.g. I'm willing to accept God on faith, and I'm even more serious than you because I believe in the Shroud of Turin and weeping Mary statues, etc.

3. Tin foil hats and the shroud server to create great, "Yes!" "No!" Uh-huh!" "Nya-uh!" ad infinitum arguments without actually inspiring any real conversation.

Perhaps the tin-foil hat was a stretch, but I have no love or respect for the shroud, and I wince when people cling to it as some kind of proof of Jesus' existence.

What I've been trying to say is that I believe Christians should testify and share their Faith by showing God's love instead name-calling, threats of hell, and the idol-worship of man-made pieces of cloth.

[Ann Archy]

THANK YOU .....Fabulous facts!!!

[hosepipe]

[ Your answers are still beyond bizarre. ;) ]

BIZAAR.!.. you did'nt even notice my response(s) were tongue in cheek...
NOW thats bizaaro... d;-'